The Hyundai 4x4 at the centre of the Westminster terrorist atrocity might have ended its bloody mission at the gates of Parliament, but the vehicle — and the maniac behind the wheel — began the journey more than 100 miles up the M40 . . . in Birmingham.

The vehicle was hired from a firm — in Birmingham. The ‘driver’ was staying in a rented flat — in Birmingham. Police with machine guns carried out a series of raids in the aftermath of the attack — in Birmingham.

Birmingham. Birmingham. Birmingham. It’s always Birmingham.

Under different circumstances, these revelations might be treated as no more than incidental facts in the narrative. After all, the Hyundai had to come from somewhere, the perpetrator had to live somewhere.

The maniac behind the wheel in the London terror attack began the journey more than 100 miles up the M40

The recent history of Britain’s second city, however, tells us that the Birmingham ‘connection’ is more significant; more than just a coincidence.

How can the shocking statistic — namely, that one in ten convicted Islamic terrorists come from a tiny area of Birmingham in and around the Sparkbrook district — be dismissed as a ‘coincidence?’

These five highly concentrated Muslim council wards, occupying a few square miles, have produced 26 of the country’s 269 known jihadis, according to recent analysis of terrorism in the UK.

The evidence is there, in black and white, in the 1,000-page report published earlier this month by security think-tank, the Henry Jackson Society.

The overall number of Islamic terrorists revealed to have had a Birmingham address down the years is even higher: 39 in total. This figure is more than for the whole of West Yorkshire, Greater Manchester and Lancashire put together.

The address where Khalid Masood, the man responsible for the Westminster outrage, was believed to have been holed up was in Hagley Road, a busy thoroughfare lined with kebab shops, cheap Asian food outlets and boarded-up stores with broken windows.

Officially, Hagley Road falls within the leafy Edgbaston postcode, but it has more in common with nearby Sparkbrook, which runs adjacent to this run-down part of Edgbaston (which famously boasts one of England’s regular Test match cricket grounds).

Parviz Khan was the ringleader of a plot to behead a Muslim soldier in the British army 'like a pig'

The back-to-back terraces of Sparkbrook, and similar neighbourhoods around the country, have often been cited as examples of thriving multiculturalism. In truth, they have become segregated ghettos with high rates of crime and unemployment, where few British-origin households remain.

Only a generation ago, residents were made up of indigenous locals and families from Ireland, attracted by cheap housing and employment.

In the Sixties, the first migrants from the Indian sub-continent arrived, and so began a process of irreversible change that culminated in mass, uncontrolled immigration under New Labour.

Today, multiculturalism in Sparkbrook means a Muslim from Pakistan living-side-by-side with a Muslim from, say Bangladesh or Kashmir.

University research recently identified Sparkbrook as one of two areas outside London with more than 30 per cent of people not born in the UK. A significant section of Sparkbrook’s population do not speak English. There are 22 mosques in Sparkbrook alone.

Khalid Masood, 52, a father of three — originally from Kent — might have been a ‘lone wolf’ in the sense that he was the only person in the Hyundai, the only person with a knife, but that does not necessarily mean he was acting in isolation.

Masood, a Muslim convert — and irony of ironies, formerly an English teacher who taught in the West Midlands — clearly had ‘contacts’ in Birmingham. Hence the police raids across the city, and in London and elsewhere. Seven of the eight people arrested on suspicion of preparation of terrorist acts were seized in Birmingham.

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Four people were killed and more than 20 injured when father-of-three Masood drove onto the pavement on Westminster Bridge and attacked police officer PC Keith Palmer

Recent events will do little to ease strained relations between the police and local Muslims.

Imran Awan, a criminologist at Birmingham City University, says Muslims in Birmingham have felt increasingly demonised, and draws comparisons with treatment of the Irish community here following the Birmingham pub bombings in 1974.

It was typified by the controversy, back in 2008, when West Midlands Police installed CCTV and automatic number plate reading (ANPR) cameras in inner city Birmingham, allegedly to combat vehicle crime and anti-social behaviour. In fact, they were put up as part of a programme by the force’s counter-terrorism unit with the consent of the Home Office and M15.

After the truth emerged, police were forced to apologise to Muslims and bags were placed over the cameras.

Many would still argue — and not just with the benefit of hindsight — that the police’s surveillance operation was justified.

Police on Westminster Bridge, where Masood carried out the horrific terror attack on Wednesday

In 2002, Britain’s first Al Qaeda-inspired terrorist, Moinul Abedin, was jailed for 20 years for turning a terrace house in Sparkbrook into a bomb-making factory. Among the deadly haul was an industrial quantity of the chemical required for the high-explosive HMTD, which was used in the July 7 attacks on London’s Tube and bus network in 2005.

Abedin was 25 at the time, married with children and working as a waiter, then as a used-car salesman. He is 42 now, and according to our inquiries, he has just completed his sentence and is back on the streets of Birmingham.

In 2008, Parviz Khan, now 35, who plotted to kidnap and behead a British Muslim soldier, was jailed for life. He lived in Washwood Heath (one of the other wards identified in the Henry Jackson Society report).

In 2013, Irfan Khalid was jailed for 18 years for being part of an Al Qaeda cell that plotted a bomb attack that ‘could kill 2,000 people.’ Khalid lived in Sparkbrook, not far from the scene of this week’s police raids.

The 4x4 used by Khalid Masood in the Westminster attack was hired from a branch of Enterprise in Solihull.

It was in Solihull that Birmingham men Abdelatif Gaini, Humza Ali, Mohammed Ali Ahmed, and Gabriel Rasmus, were filmed attending a paintballing bonding session in their military fatigues around three years ago.

American tourist Kurt Cochran, 54, (pictured left) died after Masood drove onto the pavement on Westminster Bridge, and PC Keith Palmer (right) was stabbed to death outside the Houses of Parliament

But far from being a bit of adrenaline-fuelled fun, the game was actually a practice session for jihad.

Humza Ali was later convicted of terrorism offences, and Rasmus was jailed after being arrested en route to Syria.

Ali Ahmed was convicted for handing money over to the Brussels man linked to the Brussels bombing, and Gaini is thought to be fighting for ISIS in the Middle East.

So why has Birmingham become the terror capital of the UK?

Security experts point to the fact that many Muslims living in Birmingham today can trace their origins to the divided state of Kashmir, which has been the centre of an endless territorial dispute between Pakistan and India.

Throughout the Nineties, Kashmiri militants fighting for an independent Kashmir travelled to Birmingham to raise funds and inspire local Muslims to join the fight. Many of the convicted jihadists from the city used Kashmiri militant groups as ‘stepping stones’ to join Al Qaeda.

But this is not the only reason for Birmingham becoming synonymous with extremism.

Birmingham, remember, was the setting for the Trojan Horse scandal, when militant Muslims attempted to infiltrate state schools to impose an Islamic agenda.

The controversy resulted in an inquiry in 2014. The council admitted it had shied away from the problem out of a ‘fear of being accused of racism’.

Others, including the head forced out by hardliners, have accused the authority of turning a blind eye to extremism out of political expediency — because most Muslims vote Labour.

Yet, only recently, Dame Louise Casey, the Government’s integration tsar, wrote to the leader of the council questioning whether sufficient lessons have been learnt from the affair.

Her intervention followed the resignation of Waseem Zaffar, the council’s cabinet member for ‘transparency, openness and equality’, who was forced to resign after a pressurising a Roman Catholic school to a let a four-year-old girl wear an Islamic veil in class. The school, which caters for Catholics and non-Catholics alike, had a uniform policy that banned headwear.

Mr Zaffar said the policy breached the Equalities Act, a claim dismissed by Dame Louise Casey, who condemned Mr Zaffar’s behaviour. Mr Zaffar still plays a prominent role in local Labour politics, however. He is the campaign chief for Labour’s candidate to be the first elected West Midlands metropolitan mayor in May.

Meanwhile, veteran Muslim councillor Muhammad Afzal - withdrew from the running to become Lord Mayor of Birmingham last year following a series of controversies.

He lost support after branding David Cameron an Islamophobe and allegedly making inflammatory comments to a Muslim women’s group, when he claimed ‘domestic violence was happening mainly in the Christian community because they get drunk’. It is denied that he said this.

Councillor Afzal, incidentally, is also the chairman of Birmingham Central Mosque.

Critics have argued that such political leadership — or lack of it — has created a culture where militancy has flourished.

This is why they believe that the ‘Birmingham Connection’ to the Westminster atrocity is much more than just a coincidence.